Howie Day takes the stage at TCAN Saturday

Sunday

Jul 21, 2013 at 12:01 AMJul 21, 2013 at 9:15 PM

Howie Day struck a successful chord with his confessional pop-ballad "Collide" a decade ago, during one of his solo artist phases. He’s also worked with full bands, and different formats that have featured varying numbers of musicians behind him. A regular performer at The Center for Arts in Natick over the years, he returns on Saturday, July 27 doing the duo thing, singing and playing guitar, with cellist Ward Williams joining him onstage.

Ed Symkus/DAILY NEWS CORRESPONDENT

Howie Day struck a successful chord with his confessional pop-ballad "Collide" a decade ago, during one of his solo artist phases. He’s also worked with full bands, and different formats that have featured varying numbers of musicians behind him. A regular performer at The Center for Arts in Natick over the years, he returns on Saturday, July 27 doing the duo thing, singing and playing guitar, with cellist Ward Williams joining him onstage.

"I actually started with piano," said Day, 32, by phone from his home in Maine. "One day my mom went to an estate auction when I was 4 or 5 years old, and she brought a piano home and put it in the living room. I didn’t have any understanding of it, but I was sort of drawn to it. I knew the low notes were on the left and the high notes were on the right, and I figured out how to copy and play little TV jingles."

Classical lessons soon followed, but when his teacher died, a switch to a new instructor also signaled a change in musical direction.

"The new teacher was a jazz guy, and he wanted me to play jazz," said Day.

More change was to follow, rapidly.

"I was 11 or 12, and was starting to discover Nirvana and Green Day and Pearl Jam," he said. "And my mom was freaking out over that, so she started slipping CDs of the Beatles and Van Morrison under my door and saying, ‘Play this instead.’ So I got this interesting mix.

"But when I was 13, it was time to get a guitar," he added. "I think singing comes along naturally with the guitar, and I started doing that secretly. I also wanted to write songs like John Lennon."

Day’s first live performance, just him and his guitar, was at his parents’ restaurant in Bangor, Maine, when he was 15.

"I remember having butterflies, which were there for maybe the first half-hour of the first show," he said. "But then I loved it, I was addicted. I played there once a week for a while and then I picked up another gig at another restaurant on a different day. And not long after that I got one at University of Maine at one of the college bars.

Day’s songwriting skills were taking shape. He came up with his opus of lost love, "She Says" when he was 16, right around the time he put his first band together.

"That was fun, and it lasted a year or two, but I was too much of a dictator and was destined to be a solo artist," he said, laughing. "So the solo thing took over, and within a couple of years I had a record contract, so it worked out all right."

But change has remained a constant with Day.

"The solo show eventually reached a point where I plateaued with it a little bit," he admitted. "I knew people loved it and it was fun, but I also felt that it was done, and I wanted to try something else. We had a major label record, and we needed a band, so I put one together pretty quickly. I caught a lot of backlash for that from the core fan base. They said they liked me better solo. But we got new fans, too."

Day is currently without a major label, and though he still does some solo shows, he’s mostly playing in quartet format, with Michael Bellar on keyboards, Ward Williams on cello and Brad Wentworth on percussion.

"We’re doing new versions of old songs, but most importantly, we’re doing new songs, which we’ve started recording," he said. "But we’re not just in the studio recording; we’re doing shows, and recording at the same time, in between. My goal is to let it evolve. We’ll finish the recordings and then see if any labels are interested."

Yet even after almost two decades of playing in front of people, Day still gets a few butterflies.

"I think that’s an inherent insecurity that comes with most songwriters," he said. "I sometimes consider myself a bit too sensitive for my own good, and maybe that’s why I still get a little nervous before shows over the years. But having the creative energy there to replace whatever nervousness is there is the most important thing. If you love what you’re doing, butterflies feel good, rather than terrifying. I’ve had my ups and downs, but right now this is all very fulfilling."

Opening for Day is singer-songwriter Dan Godlin, a Texas native who grew up in Sharon. Godlin hit the adult contemporary charts a couple of years ago with his heartfelt single "My Hurricane," followed that up with the upbeat hit "Did She Look," and is currently touring in support of his new EP "In Between."